I put this off a long time, and finally it rose to the top of my queue. I shouldn’t have worried, because it an entertaining DVD with some superior writing. Most of the really good stuff is delivered by Emma Stone (Olive) since she’s making a long video blog about her troubles. But I don’t want to leave out Thomas Hayden Church whom I haven’t warmed up to until this movie. He’s very good here. And Patricia Clarkson. Wow is she good in this. Shouldn’t be surprised though. Look at the films she’s been in (from Joe Gould’s Secret, The Green Mile, Far From Heaven, The Station Agent to Cairo Time – man was she good in that. Here she’s Olive’s mother. She just doesn’t get her due.

The story is a satire on high school cliques and popularity, and getting that dreaded disease, “a reputation”. She’s reading The Scarlet Letter in class, and well, you know….life imitates art. Stone plays it for all it’s worth as the girl who just can’t say no – but in a good way. When things really get out of hand, she starts wearing a red “A” on her clothes, or as she says, she’s “accessorizing”.